A boom support vehicle is a trailer attached to the boom of a crane for the purpose of supporting a portion of the weight of the boom of the crane when using a crane carrier to move the crane over roadways. The additional axles provided by the boom support vehicle take some of the crane's heavy weight, thereby lowering the per axle load exerted on the roadway to a level which is within regulatory limits. The boom support vehicle also takes boom-related forces that result from the crane carrier and boom support vehicle going into and coming out of a turn. As cranes have increased in size, boom support vehicles have necessarily been modified to accommodate these larger loads. For example, boom support vehicles have been equipped with hydraulic suspension and better boom-to-vehicle connections to better travel safely on the highway at higher speeds. Typical boom support vehicles include articulated front and rear dollys which have conventional axles. The dolly tower is rigidly connected to the elongated load and pin connected to the top surface of the boom support vehicle by lateral pins to allow the dolly to pivot in a fore and aft direction.
As the carrier steers and pivots about the crane turntable bearing it is essentially pulling the crane boom sideways, generating a torque into the boom support vehicle's vertical tower and thus into the boom support vehicle itself. This generates high structural force through the dolly, and this results in the tires side scuffing from the torsion that results. In addition, all components are subjected to the side forces created (suspension, suspension support brackets, etc.).
Presently nothing has been developed to eliminate or reduce the scuffing (dragging of the boom support vehicle tires) which occurs as consistently larger crane carriers and boom support vehicles enter and come out of turns. The scuffing is particularly severe on the tires of the boom support vehicle's front axle.